Script History - General Information

Question 1

What does ‘canonical’ mean?

Answer 1

That a script conforms to a standard set of conventions

Question 2

What is majuscule?

Answer 2

A Capital script and with few ascenders or descenders

Question 3

What is minuscule?

Answer 3

A script which is within 4 lines- It has so many ascenders and descenders that they can’t fit between two lines

Question 4

What is cursive?

Answer 4

A script of running writing, with strokes and letters joined

Question 5

What is a ‘schriftprovinz’?

Answer 5

A ‘Script Province’

A geographical area with a shared set of scribal conventions i.e. The Irish-Sea Schriftprovinz

Question 6

What is non-canonical?

Answer 6

A script that does not conform to conventions

Question 7

What does ‘pre-canonical’ mean?

Answer 7

A script that does not yet conform to conventions.
But this assumes a situation which moves towards standardisation– We should question why people would want their writing to become more and more similar, although this does generally happen for a time

Question 8

When do we class the ‘Insular script system’ from?

Answer 8

Insular script system = 600-850

Question 9

What does ‘Phase I’ Insular mean?

Answer 9

A pre-canonical or non-canonical Insular script

It has more variety and so is hard to create an alphabet of

Question 10

What does ‘Phase II’ Insular mean?

Answer 10

A canonical Insular script

This was the highest grade of script that Insular scribes knew of

Question 11

What does ‘Type A’ Insular mean?

Answer 11

A script specific to Northumbria

Question 12

What does ‘Type B’ Insular mean?

Answer 12

A script characteristic of England south of the Humber

Question 13

What are the three major things that script can tell us about a manuscript?

Answer 13

Where it was written, when and by whom

Question 14

Why is script useful to study?

Answer 14

Script can serve as evidence of culture
Styles of handwriting can change depending upon political and historical context- for example, in the 11th century, there was a switch from an english to a french style, owing to the Norman invasion

Question 15

What is the difference between ‘script’ and ‘hand’?

Answer 15

Script is an abstract ideal with principles and rules, much like a font. But someone trying to write in one script could end up with their hand showing features of another
Parkes defined the difference ‘A script is the model which the scribe had in his mind’s eye when he writes whereas a hand is what he actually puts down on the page”.

Question 16

What happened after the Vikings?

Answer 16

When people started writing again after the hiatus caused by the Vikings, they weren’t particularly good at it– We have ‘Alfredian’ minuscule which was extremely variable

Question 17

What happened in the 12th century?

Answer 17

Letters became narrower in the 12th century- ‘lateral compression’

Question 18

Discuss Caroline minuscule

Answer 18

Caroline minuscule came to England at some point in the 11th century and brought with it a whole new set of letter forms: including a ‘G’ which looks a lot like a modern day ‘g’– this would have looked abnormal at the time.
It carried on throughout the 11th century but was never particularly uniform

Question 19

What had happened by the 10th century?

Answer 19

Script had become much more uniform, such as square minuscule observing the top line

Question 20

When should you use capital letters in a transcription?

Answer 20

If the scribe has used enlarged initials, rubrics in a majuscule script or other deliberate use of majuscule or enlarged script.
Only use capitals at the beginning of a passage if they are found in the manuscript

Question 21

What letters don’t exist in Latin?

Answer 21

J, K, Y and Z (– but these may come up in Old English transcriptions)